Forney got a rooftop view of the completed panels for Walking Fingers (Images: Ellen Forney with permission to CHS)
With Capitol Hill Station fully on track for a March 2016 opening, it’s time to install the art.
Or, the rest of it.
The massive, hot pink Jet Kiss sculpture featuring the deconstructed hulls of two A-4 fighters was hung during construction of the Broadway light rail station’s underground platform.
“The top design is ‘Walking Fingers,’ a 28′ x 20′ mural for the Sound Transit Capitol Hill Light Rail Station’s west entry (near Seattle Central Community College).
The bottom design is ‘Crossed Pinkies,’ a 40′ x 10′ mural for the light rail station’s north entry (the corner of Broadway and John).”
Workers will soon begin installing two giant, paneled murals by local artist Ellen Forney. The panels for the works are still being finished but the walls are up and ready for installation. Forney agreed to let CHS share some behind the scenes looks at the final work.
The ground coat is applied at KVO, the shop in California fabricating the porcelain enamel on steel panels. “It’s a medium I wasn’t familiar with before this job, is extremely durable, the colors are saturated, and the lines are crisp (just like I like ’em). It reminds me of the silkscreened rock posters I used to design, and how much I liked the effect,” Forney writes.
CHS talked to Forney about Walking Fingers and Crossed Pinkies late last year. Now, after getting the gig way back in 2008, Forney is finally seeing just how large scale her first public art will be.
“Working on this scale is very new to me and has me thinking a lot about the effect of size on the feel and meaning of a piece,” she wrote about the project last week. “I’m so curious what these will be like when they’re hung up there for real.”
UPDATE 11/16/2015: Forney reports that installation has begun:
(Image: Ellen Forney)
Whatever.
Enough already. Between the anal beads, the bizarre loops, rainbow crosswalks, and astro turf green bike lanes-Capitol Hill is starting to resemble a Putt Putt golf course.
Time to rein it in, folks.
Right. Let’s just emulate Fife.
Whereas I disagree with your comment, it did receive a snicker from me.
Just leave then if you don’t like it. Good riddance and we’ll be happy without you.
Gee, Carla, can’t you come up with a more original put-down?
I wish. Miniature golf is fun. I guess Seattle isn’t gray and shapeless enough for you. I suggest you stay at home watching a TV test pattern. Oh wait, that’s a rainbow. Never mind, just close your eyes then.
As one that used to love Forney’s work in The Stranger and in comic books got at Fallout on Olive Way, I’m kind of thrilled for her to have this installation as a permanent hello to the future.
I agree!
Any work chosen for here is bound to elicit a chorus of snarky comments from SOMEBODY.
I really can’t believe some of the above comments. Forney is a fabulously talented Capitol Hill resident, and these are just so graphical and communicative and suited to their scale. I like the sneakiness of the walking fingers (kinda sexy, kinda subtle, like they’re trying to remind you of something–maybe the old Capitol Hill?) and the earnest sweetness of the pinkies. I am so excited to have them represent our neighborhood. (Jet Kiss, on the other hand, is going to look dated the minute the station opens.)
Classic. Calling out other people’s critiques of art (probably sarcastic critiques anyways) immediately followed with your own criticism of another person’s art.
They are A-4s… not A14s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_A-4_Skyhawk
Thanks. We’ve made this correction before! (there is a photo in our archives with the wrong label that reintroduces the mistake ever year :( sorry!)
Love the linking pinkies! I am so glad to see that Ellen Forney’s artwork will grace our new light rail station. Forney represents Capitol Hill’s legacy as an enclave for both graphic artists and the LGBTQ community.